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OLD, TIRED, BUILDS 2 TINY CANNON, KILLS SELF, WIFE

By Faith Fair and Howard Whitman.

An elderly Staten Islander killed himself and his wife in a suicide pact yesterday, using two miniature cannon. After lighting fuses on the tiny weapons the old man sat in one chair, his wife in another, and waited for the death blasts.

Each was struck in the abdomen with a slug made of .22 caliber bullets fused together to fit roughly into the three-quarter inch muzzles of the cannon, which the old man himself had fashioned. They were seven and ten inches long.

As police reconstructed the strange case, 71-year-old Joseph Podubinski, the husband, first clamped the weapons to the bench in his tool shed. He aimed them at two chairs opposite the bench, then muzzle-loaded them with black powder, rammed it down and pushed the two slugs down the barrels.

Relatives Absent.

It was getting night and deadly quiet around the Podubinskis' trim brick house at 328 Hillside Ave., Concord, S. I. The tool shed door was shut tight. A daughter, Mrs. Sophie Marshlyin, and her husband, Peter, who lived with the elderly couple, had gone to Long Island.

Podubinski had placed fuses in tiny holes at the breech ends of the cannons. Apparently he had to light them several times before the detonations came, for burned matches were scattered about. He and his wife, Victoria, 68, were slumped over dead, side by side, in the two chairs when Mrs. Marshlyin found them at noon yesterday.

Too Ill to Go On.

A note written in Polish explained that the elderly pair were "tired of life" and ill. Podubinski pointed out that he was so sick he could "no longer eat, smoke or drink" the things he wanted to. As for Victoria, she had been so attached to him all their 50 wedded years that she didn't want to go on alone.

And Now It's the WAFS, Girl Fliers for the Army
Washington, D.C., Sept. 10 (U.P.). -- Secretary of War Stimson announced today that an experimental unit of women fliers to ferry Army planes from factories to airfields will be established by the Air Transport Command. 
  The New unit will be known as the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Mrs. Nancy Harkness Love, 28, of Boston, wife of Lieut. Col. Robert M. Love, deputy chief of staff of the Air Transport Command, will be commander.
  The Secretary said that, under tentative plans, the initial group will consist of about 50 women, all of whom will be given a civil service sautés. He estimated that about 40 will be active pilots. The others will be assigned to administrative duties.
  "The WAFS, at first, will be limited to flying smaller aircraft- such as training and liaison planes- within the United States," Stimson said.
  Their duties thus will be restricted than those of their British counterparts, the Atagirls of the English Air Transport Auxiliary. The British women fly more than 140 different types of aircraft ranging from Spitfires to heavy bombers. Organized in January 1941, the Atagirls now number more than 100 under the command of Pauline Gower. 
  Qualifications for membership in the WAFS are about the same as those for male civilian pilots now employed on civil services pilots now employed on civil service status by the Air Transport Command.
  Minimum requirements include an age limit between 21 and 35, inclusive; a high school education, commercial license with 200-horse power rating, not less than 500 hours of certified flying time, American citizenship, and cross-country flying experience. 
  The WAFS will be taken into the Air Transport Command in groups of 10 to 15, Stimson said. After their training period they will receive $3,000 a year. 


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(Associated Press Wirefoto)
Mrs. Nancy Harkness Love is congratulated by Major Gen. Harold L. George, chief of Air Transport Command, after her appointment yesterday to head WAFs.



Drivers Ask ODT Not to Cut Buses

Four thousand Manhattan bus drivers and conductors are petitioning the ODT not to cut bus services until non-essential use of rubber and gasoline by private cars and taxis is ended, the CIO Transport Workers Union disclosed yesterday. The union argues that a bus service cut would throw many men out of work.


Quiz Suspect in Her Slaying

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A 32-year-old Boston taxicab driver was arrested and questioned by police yesterday about the slaying of pretty Frances Cochran, (shown here), near Lynn, Mass., last year.

Nab Ex-Asylum Inmate In 1941 Sex Slaying

Boston, Sept. 10 (U.P.).—A former inmate of New York and Massachusetts mental hospitals was questioned exhaustively today by police who said he was the most promising suspect seized during the 14-month investigation of the sex-slaying of Frances Cochran, 19-year-old Lynn bookkeeper.

The suspect, a 32-year-old Boston taxicab driver, was arrested in his lodging house room last night by a vice squad that had trailed him for 24 hours. They said he had been under observation for some time.

Landlady Saw Shoe.

The suspect had no police record but had been confined to mental hospitals in Brooklyn and at Taunton, Mass.

Police arrested him as result of a tip from a former landlady who claimed to have seen a woman's white shoe concealed beneath the seat of his automobile three days after the Cochran murder. Miss Cochran's left shoe - a white, open - toed model - was missing when her body was discovered in the briars of a lovers lane July 20, 1941.

After night-long questioning, during which the suspect stoutly protested his innocence, Police Commissioner Joseph F. Timilty said this circumstantial evidence had been uncovered:

At the time of the murder, the suspect was employed as a door-to-door salesman of aluminum ware in Lynn. His automobile was a black, square-backed sedan with artillery wheels, similar to that in which Miss Cochran rode to her death.

On or about July 17, 1941 - the day Miss Cochran vanished - the suspect disappeared from his lodging house in Boston and remained away about three days. 

He returned the day miss coch-ran's body was discovered. 

A fellow lodger told police that on that day the suspect was wear-
[[image]]
Missing mate to this shoe, worn by Frances Cochran when she was slain, was sought police in tracking the slayer.

in new clothes. The lodger said he saw the suspect destroying a blue black slack suit. "Why don't you give that to me?" the lodger asked, and the suspect reputedly replied, "I don't want it any more. I want to get rid of it."

Angered by Reference 

Prior to the murder, the suspect had parked his car in the street in front of his lodging house. When he returned from the three-day absence, however, he asked the landlady if he could park the car in the back yard. The suspect sold the car Aug. 1, 1941.

Three days after the murder, the suspect agreed to drive his land-lady and her daughter to Newton and Worcester. During the ride the seat slipped and revealed the white shoe. "What are you doing, going around with a one-legged woman?" the landlady jokingly in-quired. She told police the suspect became angered at her quip and ordered them out of the car. 

Time Is Short For Soldiers
-
Time is growing short for soldiers who want to vote in the Nov. 3 election. Mother, wife, brother, sister or sweetheart may file a ballot application with the State War Ballot Commission, 2 Lafayette St., Manhattan, or State Capitol, Albany. No ap-plication is needed for men abroad, where officers will be special election commissioners. 
Of 75,000 applications sent to individual service men and 200,-000 placed in the hands of com-manding officers, about 60,000 have been returned. A large per-centage of this number is expecting to vote.

Keynoter Clare Gains Strength
By JOHN CROSSON.
Hartford, Sept. 10 - As the Republican State Convention converted here tonight, Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce, the key note, appeared to have gathered additional strength in her race for the party's Congressional nomination in Fairfield County. 

The Fairfield, or Fouth District, Congressional convention will be held Monday in Bridgeport. Mrs. Luce's arch-rival in the race is Miss Vivian Kellems, Westport manufacturer. Others in the field are Daniel F. B. Hickey, George Van Riper, Robert Fatherly and Lester Barlow. 

"Clare Luce will be nominated on the first ballot," said William Sheehy, Shelton town charman. "She has, as of today, 65 of the 92 delegates. After her speech to-night I would not be a bit surprised if she were nominated by acclama-tion."

Miss Kellems, arrived in Hartford early today and immediately sought out Mrs. Luce's other rivals. 

"I'm in this fight to the finish." she told them. "I don't intend to withdraw under any circumstances. I have no statement to make concerning Mrs. Luce. I may have something to say Sunday."

Organization for Baldwin.

The state convention will nominate tomorrow candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, controller, attorney general and congressmen-at-large. 

Former Gov. Raymond E. Baldwin is the organization candidate for governor. favored by State Chairman J. Kenneth Bradley. Op-posing him is Clifford B. Wilson, former lieutenant governor and ex-mayor of Bridgeport. Wilson withdrew from the Fairfield County Congressional race to "fight the Bradley-Baldwin forces" after Bradley had endorsed Mrs. Luce for the Fourth District nomination. 
[[image]]
Clare Booth Luce Gaining political strength
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Service Button Sales Mount To Total of 86,903
Sale of Services Flag Buttons reached a grand total 86,903 at The News Information Bureau, 220 E. 42d St., late yesterday afternoon. One hundred forty-seven were distributed over the counter at two cents each and 110 by mail at five cents each, bringing the days's total to 257. All profits are turned over to the USO.


[[left margin]] DAILY NEWS, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1942 4 [[left margin/]]